Saturday, February 6, 2010

Researchers from 14 institutions around the world asked more than 600 people to take up cycling and tracked subsequent improvements in their aerobic fitness. This involved measuring the amount of oxygen they took in, an indicator of the heart's ability to pump blood and one of the best predictors of a long and healthy old age...

By peering into the volunteers' DNA, they found 30 genes that affect oxygen uptake and showed that differences in 11 of these genes closely correlated with changes in aerobic fitness after cycling. Around one in five of those tested had a combination of genes that meant their oxygen uptake hardly changed, despite weeks of fast pedaling.

'The change in aerobic fitness was so small you could miss it,' said researcher James Timmons.

I suppose this is good news for 20 percent of the people who are looking for an excuse to quit Insanity.